Jeff McDonald: Another point guard in camp

There are six players in Spurs training camp with experience playing point guard. On Wednesday morning, they welcomed another one.

Avery Johnson, who manned the point on the Spurs’ first NBA title team in 1999, was on hand to observe his former team’s second day of training camp. Johnson, of course, is newly unemployed, having been removed from his post as the head coach in Dallas over the offseason.

Not surprisingly, Johnson was embraced as a friend of the Spurs family, and not as an erstwhile rival coach.

For Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, the feelings of seeing Johnson in town Wednesday were mixed.

“I like to have Avery here, because he’s special to all of us here in San Antonio,” Popovich said. “It’s good to get a chance to talk basketball with him, talk family and just laugh and have a good time. But I’d rather he was coaching somewhere.”

* Popovich probably wishes Johnson could play some post. Due to injuries to big men Kurt Thomas and Ian Mahinmi, the Spurs are thin for the moment in the frontcourt.

In fact, Thomas’ strained hamstring is almost solely responsible for the end of the Brian Morrison era in San Antonio. Morrison, a 6-2 guard, was waived after one day of training camp so the Spurs could add another big body — the 6-foot-9 Charles Gaines, a veteran of the European leagues.

Thomas said Wednesday he expects to miss at least the first week of camp, and possibly the second. Mahinmi, out with a sprained right ankle, felt well enough to shoot around at Wednesday’s session, but still isn’t expected to be available for much of the preseason.